Georgia_Peaches

We are fully prepared to be guinea pigs on this voyage. I don't mind, I expect kinks and will be happy to get them ironed out for you 😄. You're right! I guess I just thought that since it was more of a "practice" cruise for the crew that it wouldn't be as appealing to most and therefore the prices would reflect that. Nope...wrong again. I expect that prices will "normalize" after the maiden voyage and into next year. I know there will be a lot of pomp and circumstance with the actual maiden voyage in December and maybe even some special gifts to mark the occasion, which would naturally increase the price. I don't expect any of that on our pre-pre-maiden voyages, yet the prices are still astounding. @Jeremiah1212 pointed out that $1500 pp/pd for upper suites is in line with what eClass fetches. I didn't know that as have only done RS on S class and haven't paid more than $750 pp/pd. All that to say, I am a capitalist and if Celebrity can get those prices for their product, more power to them! I won't pay it...but that's just me.

I’ve been on all three. Reflection twice, equinox twice, silhouette once. I lean toward silhouette and reflection for the additional dining venues (Lawn Club and the Porch). But ultimately, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them so recommend you pick the ship that offers the most interesting itinerary.

I tend to agree. Especially now that I’ve learned that I can cruise pretty nicely (on Celebrity) in a non suite category.

Or maybe I'll get my upgrade bid...not holding my breath tho. 😁

Just checked to see what suites are left on our upcoming 3 night Ascent pre-maiden voyage cruise in November. We have a SS1 for this part of the b2b and a few weeks ago I put in a "fair" bid for both a Royal Suite and an Edge Villa Suite. And because I don't really do the bidding process in favor of just booking what we want outright, I decided to see if any were left for a possible upgrade. Behold, there is one RS left that can be had for $7300 and there is one Edge Villa that can be had for $9056....for three nights! Umm, that's a hard no on both. And I'm guessing my "fair" bid has a less than fair change of being accepted...lol. I know it's a new ship and there are bills to pay, but are people really paying these prices? Regardless, we are still very excited for this cruise!

In the world according to GP, I say if each leg has a different booking number then it's three different cruises.

Wow! I wouldn't think the majority here have as many as 20. In fact, that's likely an outlier. I can see 3 to 5 though...and my bet is that like us, many of those bookings were made a while ago.

Very good question! We have 3...a b2b and an Alaska for 2024. All were booked back in the spring. The rest of our 2024 cruising outlook is up in the air ATM. We generally like to take a spring and a fall cruise but have nothing booked for fall of '24. We have a Med cruise booked for spring 2025 but not with Celebrity.

Wondering what the suggestion was, I missed it.

Take the cruise! JMO

Wow. One would think that if anyone would know about the discount it’s the FC reps. 🤦‍♀️ seems easy-peasy. Looking forward to having the ship to ourselves… even for a little while. Our b2b is for the first and second paid passenger voyage of the Ascent. I make room for turn around day to be a little chaotic since I think the purpose of the exercise is to give the crew practice with several different scenarios… disembarkation, Turing over rooms, removing luggage, processing b2bers, etc.

Same...always have cash on hand for the purpose of tipping...or rather DH has cash on hand so that he can tip. I leave it up to him while I'm off to make us money in the casino...lol.

Scary thought, indeed. Perhaps they should rethink that practice. One never knows what emergency info may need to get out to passengers.

Classic drinks package is $89 pp/pd and I think the premium package is $109 pp/pd. The wifi package is 20 bucks a day. if you have loyalty points on RCL you can match them on Celebrity and possibly get some discounts depending on your loyalty level. You might also look for a TA that is offering a group rate for your cruise as those packages are often included in the price. In fact, TA or not, the All Inclusive rate is usually better that a la carte route. happy planing for your milestone birthday!

Actually, I think you might have misread. I said “casino camp” (not comp) meaning like the other poster, we only sail on ships who have a casino venue on board. I’d be very surprised to learn that RSS are comping cruises 😊. As for complaints on the Regent board, I truly must be missing them…although I am following a thread about dissatisfaction with Regent Air.

You are a wealth of information and I am so grateful!

This is exactly my thinking as well. I'd rather deviate and possibly pay the upcharge, still deeply discounted over the regular fare if I were to book it myself. I do think it's a shame what happened to the OP but I feel like if this was the norm in working with RA, we'd be reading many more posts like his. I have no personal experience with this...yet.

I was under the impression that all legs of the journey were in either first class or business class. Is this not the case?

100% agree. A balcony without shade is useless to us...

How was the overhang from the deck above? I feel like the aft balconies don’t offer much shade…a must for us.

It took us a while to finally give MSC a try but when we did, we were very happy with the decision. Would love to put Silverseas on our bucket list. So many options and so little time… sigh.

We had the exact same experience with the Luminae "ribeye" on Solstice. It was not a ribeye and it wasn't edible. We were staying in a RS and the shoreside concierge messed up our dinner reservation at Tuscan Grille. It was actually closed for a private event so the Retreat concierge tried to get us seated at Murano....to no avail...so we ended up in Luminae. It was almost 9 PM by the time we arrived so no, I didn't send it back...should have, but didn't. As it was, we were the last ones in Luminae and the staff were breaking down tables all around us...yes, I did make a comment about that as we left. It was probably the worst experience (and only bad one) we've ever had while staying in a suite. But I digress...the steak, if you want to call it that, was terrible!

We are on Ascent 11/22 and 11/26. I booked all of our dinner reservations in the cruise planner...not the app. To my surprise, my reservations showed up in the app a few days later.

We tried MSC Yacht Club and loved it. We didn't try YC because Celebrity didn't feel nice enough though, we tried MSC because Celebrity was feeling too expensive for the suite experience and wanted to see what was on offer elsewhere. We have since booked a cruise on Regent because Celebrity's food wasn't feeling nice enough and we wanted a smaller ship experience as we cruise the Med in 2025. We are in the casino camp as well, which is why we didn't look into booking with Azamara. Regardless, I always begin my cruise search with Celebrity...

Good info., Jim! Thank you. I didn't know the part about writing the crew member's name on the envelope. Will start this practice on our upcoming cruise.